The Indefatigable Fred Beckey

I recently came across an article in the New York Times titled, "At 85, More Peaks to Conquer and Adventures to Seek."  It is about Pacific Northwest climber, now legend, Fred Beckey.  Fred Beckey's life has been a marathon of climbing trips focused very intensely on the PNW and North America in general.  The press Fred has been getting lately focuses on the fact that at 85, he is still spending large amounts of time climbing.  Fred may be most widely known for his encyclopedic guide book series, Cascade Alpine Guide, volumes 1, 2, and 3.  Most PNW climbers have spent countless hours reading amazingly detailed accounts of the geology, history, and climbs of remote peaks in Washington's Cascade Range.

Over the years I have run into Fred Beckey in a variety of funny situations.  The first that I can recall was a rainy winter night at an Irish pub in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood.  A really bad band was giving it their all and Beckey happened to be in the audience.  Whenever the music lulled for a moment, Beckey would stand up and shout something along the lines of, "give it up, you guys stink," in an effort to get back to his efforts at wooing the young women in the bar.  Years later I was sitting with friends in Revelstoke, BC waiting for food to be delivered in an almost empty restaurant, when the door swung open, blizzard driven snows swirled in, and Fred Beckey stuck his face in the door, looked around at the relatively dull scene, closed the door and wandered off.  We were all amused to have ended a great week of skiing at Roger's Pass, with a "Fred sighting" that left us guessing what he was doing in sleepy Revelstoke in the middle of winter....ice climbing I suppose.

More recently I was teaching a group of middle school students how to rock climb at Mountaineers Dome in Leavenworth in one of our Leavenworth Rock Guides programs, when Beckey and an attractive young woman wandered up to the base to do some climbing.  The significance was completely lost on the kids I was working with, but I enjoyed the thought that the time from the start of his climbing career until the end of some of their's could easily span 110 years or more.

As a guide, I meet a lot of people that can rattle off the names of various Everest climbers, but it is clear that most have never heard of Fred Beckey.  I think that the reason so many guides find him interesting is that he comes across as being less into bagging that one big peak that brings notoriety, and more into doing hundreds of climbs on smaller and more obscure peaks that have led to him being a sort of living legend.  There is no question that he has as many personality quirks and hang-ups as any person, but it is hard not to be impressed by someone that has genuinely done something of substance in an activity where it is hard to stand out.  There have been scores of better climbers come out of Washington, but none so prolific.

As Lou Whitaker (three years younger than Fred Beckey) was always fond of telling his guides, "There are old climbers, and there are bold climbers, but there are no old, bold climbers."  Perhaps generally true, but then there is Fred Beckey, often the exception to the rule.

If you get a chance, read the NY Times article and keep an eye out of Fred Beckey, once he is on your radar you would be surprised at how many "Fred sightings" you can rack up in overlooked corners of the the Pacific Northwest.

Books by Fred Beckey

Cascade Alpine Guide: CLimbing and High Routes, Vols 1-3

Challenge of the North Cascades

Range of Glaciers

Mount McKinley: Icy Crown of North America

Related Northwest Mountain School Links:

Forbidden Peak West Ridge Climb (Beckey made the first ascent)